89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos today. (ComScore)

Online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016. (Cisco)

Only about 24 percent of national brands are using online video to market to consumers. (Kantar Media)

Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks. (Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report)

Consumers give up on an online video if it doesn’t load in two seconds. (University of Massachusetts Amherst and Akamai Technologies)

Users sharing video on retail and brand sites chose Facebook 46 percent of the time, with email accounting for 40 percent and Twitter capturing 14 percent of shares. (Invodo)

Globally, online video traffic will be 55 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016. (Cisco)

52 percent of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. (Invodo)

Mobile and tablet shoppers are three times as likely to view a video as laptop or desktop users. (NPD)

Mobile video ads that include social media buttons drive 36 percent higher engagement. (Rhythm NewMedia).

Online video production will account for more than one-third of all online advertising spending within the next five years. (Borrell Associates)

76 percent of marketers plan to add video to their sites, making it a higher priority than Facebook, Twitter and blog integration. (Social Media Examiner)

92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others. (Invodo)

More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month, spending more than 4 billion hours watching videos (YouTube).

2 billion video views per week are monetized on YouTube, and every auto-shared tweet results in six new YouTube browsing sessions (ReelSEO).

When thinking about your next ad campaign, consider the positive and negative effects of using borrowed interest – a good balance could prove to be your best bet.

Check out some notable print ads below that leverage social media:

Feathers, bubbles, smoke machines, and yarn.  What do they all have in common? The answer is they were all a vital part of our latest and greatest TV spot for Audio-Technica, “Silence Redesigned”.  This spot will be featured on various cable stations during the Holiday shopping season.  The spot was filmed by Revolution Pictures in Nashville, and strangely enough it was shot on a soundstage used to film scenes from the show “Nashville”.

The day started with Audio-Technica’s Consumer Marketing Manager, Crystal Griffith, and I arriving at the set just in time to see the final preparations for the jack hammer scene.  This scene quickly became everyone’s favorite and set the tone for the remainder of the shoot. The actor not only had to fake using a jackhammer by slamming it onto a block of wood, but he also had to avoid dropping it on the head of the art director who was directly below him throwing feathers into a fan.  We did have a few close calls and we now know that slamming a 100 pound jackhammer, while trying not to injure someone and inhaling feathers is a pretty solid good work out.

“Silence Redesigned” actor getting a workout of a lifetime

We then moved on to the lawn mowing scene where the crew remembered why they loved bubbles as kids.  Having fond memories of following my Dad around the yard with my Fischer Price bubble mower I was excited to see this scene come to life.  Director Jeff Venable and the DP Roger Pistole worked seamlessly together, paying attention to every detail and making sure the scene had enough bubbles to give it the desired effect the scene called for.

Planning truly is the key to any successful shoot.  It allows our projects to stay on budget and on schedule, which in turn allows GeniusRocket to provide the quality we do at a substantially lower cost.  Knowing we only had one day to shoot “Silence Redesigned”, producer Laura Gay and Jeff kept the shoot moving with very little down time in-between scenes.  The crew busted their tails off to make the transitions seamless and kept the shoot moving right along.  This, however, severely cut into my time at the craft services table.  Utilizing down time while sets were being lit, we filmed the ending product shot. While setting up the product shot, Jeff came up with a brilliant tie in by dropping a feather into the frame.  If you’re wondering how many takes and feathers it took to get the desired effect the answer is 20 and 4.

After a delicious lunch we filmed the airplane scene where we had fun with smoke machines.  This particular scene utilized the most extras and had the most elaborate set.  The entire production was very art driven, but the magical world the main character is in while he wears his Quietpoint headphones on the plane was truly my favorite.  With smoke machine and cotton clouds, the atmosphere became a peaceful and quiet place, and it was interesting to see the mood of the set reflect this.  Or maybe that was just everyone fighting off a food coma from lunch.

The day wrapped with the arrival of our violinist for our yarn portion of the production.  She was arriving straight from violin practice so she whisked off to wardrobe, and was camera ready in 10 minutes.  Jeff played the track she was going to be mimicking and to the amazement of Crystal and myself, who are musically inept, she picked up how to play the part in about 5 seconds.  Now that is talent.

The shoot wrapped at a local Nashville park, which you can see in the video below.  This is where I also learned that the geometry and math involved in a match shot completely reinforces what every math teacher has ever told you. Pay attention because no matter what field you go into you will use math.

Check out the video below! “Silence Re-Designed” from GeniusRocket on Vimeo.

What do you think of our latest video? Share your comments with us in the section below!

Kristin began her creative experience as a model, stylist, and photographer. As her experience in photography developed shooting for clients in music, fashion and advertising, she was asked to take on  directing – where she excelled. That same year, Kristin began shooting commercial television spots for advertising agencies. Kristin’s wealth of experience in front of and behind the camera gives her the ability to approach each shoot not only with creative insight, but also with strong production skills.

Revolution Pictures shooting Kellie Pickler’s country music video “Best Days of Your Life”. Source: Revolution Pictures Facebook page

GR: Revolution Pictures, with over 10 directors, continues to dominate in the country music video business. What do you think makes your work so distinguishable?

KB: We have a creative group of diverse talent here at Revolution Pictures. Each person has their own different viewpoint and perspective to the creative process. Our group of directors has vast experience, has paid their dues and has worked their way up in the business so they have an appreciation for every opportunity they get. Many of the directors here have their own businesses and we’re not afraid of that or each other. These unique people make this company what it is.

GR: And for you personally, Kristen- how do you separate your own work from the other directors at Revolution Pictures?

KB: I come from a background as a model, a stylist and a photographer- so I have been on many different sides of the creative process. The experience that I have behind the camera allows me to relate to the subjects by making them comfortable as well as pay attention to a host of different details for a client. But I am only one part of this company. What is unique about Revolution Pictures is that we can all call on each other whether it’s about a technical matter or need of perspective. It’s not necessarily me separating myself. Rather, it’s about collaborating, helping each other grow as creatives and leaving the ego at the door. We are all focused on the challenge at hand and how we can turn this challenge into a great body of work.

GR: For the two “Get Your Own Mic” spots [videos below] you did for our client Audio-Technica, you used a lot of the same footage for both videos, but were able to produce distinguishably different versions. Can you explain how you were able to accomplish this?

KB: Our producers are very creative here and when we approach a project, we ask as a team “How can we maximize and get the most production value?” We don’t want people to look at our production and be able to guess how much we’ve spent because at the end of the day, we want the best possible product. In terms of the overlap of footage, we viewed this project as a campaign. The directors here are able to think about how to deliver a campaign and because of this, we are able to work with a wide range of budgets. All of the staff here looks at client budgets through an optimistic lens. It’s not a matter of our budget limiting us, it is a matter of what we can accomplish. This mentality of finding a way to get what the client wants earns a client’s trust and repeat business.

GR: GeniusRocket has had the pleasure of collaborating with Revolution Pictures on many client projects. What do you like about working with us?

KB: I think we’re a lot alike. We both view this business the same way. We both want to create great work and have fun doing it while taking care of the client in the process. We both have separate businesses and models but we’re able to partner together in a fun, collaborative manner to help the mutual client. GeniusRocket provides a number of different ways for us to work, whether we are building off of someone else’s great idea or building off our own idea based off of the information we’re given from the creative brief. The GeniusRocket creative brief has always made us well-equipped when concepting or producing spots which really helps the creative process and helps us deliver what the client is looking for – even if they’re not entirely sure what they want.

Revolution Pictures recently wrapped up the production of yet another amazing video for one of GeniusRocket’s clients. Stay tuned for the debut!

Audio-Technica: Get Your Own Mic 1 from GeniusRocket on Vimeo.

Audio-Technica: Get Your Own Mic 2 from GeniusRocket on Vimeo.

Encouraging work submissions for a spectrum of categories including non-profit, commercial, and government client projects, AMADC’s panel of judges carefully evaluated each project based on innovation and creativity, achievements in increasing or maintaining sales, use of creative problem-solving methods, effectivesss in meeting company/client goals, impact on the business or industry, and exhibition of exemplary teamwork.

GeniusRocket was humbled to receive not one, but two awards for our work we had done for clients EMILY’s List (non-profit category) and Audio-Technica (commercial category). We are honored to have received recognition, but of course know that we would never have been capable of creating such powerful videos without the help of our talented and curated Creative Community. Many thanks for DVI Group for ideating and directing Audio-Technica’s viral video Audio 911, and to John Oquist for ideating and creating the motion graphics video for EMILY’s List. And of course, we have to thank our parents for raising us to never give up and always reach for the stars, and our significant others for tolerating us at our worst, and our deares- [cut off by sudden orchestra music]

Getting called to be recognized for our work we did for EMILY’S List. Photo source: AMADC

Our Prez Peter LaMotte picking up the 1st award! Photo source: AMADC

Emily’s List Video Encourages Voters to Elect Democratic Women in 2011 Wisconsin Recall Elections from GeniusRocket on Vimeo.

Audio-Technica Creates a Dub-Step Viral Video from GeniusRocket on Vimeo.

What do technology companies and crowdsourcing agencies have in common? Their mission is to innovate. They challenge the status quo and create new rules. They strive to enhance the customer experience in ways unfound before.

Synergies between the two sectors have led to some brilliant new products and services. We explain below some [of the many] fully-loaded benefits crowdsourcing provide:

Funding

We’re talking about crowdfunding. The JOBS Act has made it easier for small businesses to raise money online, and the number of crowdfunding platforms available to them grow by the day. Especially for start up tech companies who have visions of breakthrough innovations but lack the capital to develop their products, crowdfunding provides enormous opportunities. Not only can they potentially raise a lot of cash, the marketing benefits they get are HUGE. They get concept validation based on whether their product gains traction from the crowd. They can figure out who their target segment will be. They get feedback that tell them what product attributes can be improved. They can generate publicity and raise awareness by showcasing their product promise online.

Case Example: PhoneSoap. If you’re like us here at GeniusRocket, you carry your smartphone EVERYWHERE. Can you imagine how much bacteria it contains? PhoneSoap shows visuals of bacteria on commonly dirty surfaces on its Kickstarter page, and smartphones seemingly possess bacteria strains vile enough to spawn The Walking Dead zombies, while in comparison toilet seats look pristine enough to lick. PhoneSoap created a great product that sanitizes AND battery charges your disgusting phone. They had a goal of raising $18k- what they actually got was over $63k by over 1,000 backers. Clearly, people believe in their product and believe customers will want it.

We asked PhoneSoap founder Wesley LaPort how crowdfunding has helped his company. His response was effusive: “Kickstarter is the perfect place for getting things done and to validate ideas. Instead of wasting time raising capital and jumping through legal hoops, we can concentrate on our product and our customers. We would be absolutely nowhere without Kickstarter. We would have abandoned the idea months ago if not for its community and support.”

Kickstarter has been the leader in crowdfunding, and we’re seeing a surge of niche crowdfunding sites crop up. With the benefits being as powerful as they are, we can only imagine that this type of crowdsourcing is here to stay.

Crowdfunding beneficiary PhoneSoap

Creative Marketing

Digitization has made consumers capable of consuming and producing a crazy amount of content online. With customers exposed to so much visual stimuli, the demand for creativity (and maybe attention deficit disorder treatment) is at an all time high in order to galvanize the customer. But while digitization provides challenges, it also provides opportunities. Enter crowdsourcing agencies. A client said it to us here at GeniusRocket best: “when we went to a traditional agency, the company culture and the hiring practices rendered the creative concepts that were pitched to us similar flavors of vanilla. We came to you hoping for the craziest assortments of new flavors we have never thought of.” Crowdsourcing at its core benefit connects clients to the minds of people throughout the world that are colored by unique life experiences and inner weirdness genes. The variety and number of ideas for a new campaign can be outstanding. Idea generation isn’t the only reaped benefit through crowdsourcing. Marketing campaigns can also be comparatively way more affordable and produced with top agency-level quality; this is huge for clients who want to stretch the benefits of their marketing budget.

Case Example: Audio-Technica USA’s Viral Video. Audio-Technica’s brand awareness is huge in Japan, but relatively low in the USA. The brand team had to figure out how they could raise awareness and differentiate the brand without blowing millions of dollars on a single video campaign. That’s when they turned to us, a curated crowdsourcing agency, for a solution. Carefully chosen professionals from our creative community pitched over 30 great creative concepts to the brand team. Audio-Technica knew one in particular was going to be a slam dunk in resonating with their target audience. The chosen production company The DVI Group, was able to secure YouTube sensation Marquese Scott and produced a winning video that garnered over 1 million hits in 4 weeks. Said Audio-Technica’s brand manager: “[The Audio 911 video] was wildly successful for us. The hits increased awareness in ways we had only hoped for. We had customers speak fanatically about how they didn’t know the brand before but now they did, and how much they loved the headphones and the brand.”

Task Delegation

When a project is so large in scope, it makes sense to break it out for qualified team members to execute on. Microtasking is a crowdsourcing method that leverages digital communication to delegate tasks to remote workers. Microtasking can make a lot of sense because it increases operational efficiency; when multiple workers do their part of the job simultaneously, the rate to completion will obviously be much quicker. It’s also typically inexpensive: since many microtasking participants already have jobs and join microtasking communities as an additional source of income, they are willing to complete their part of the project at lower compensation rates. As long as proper process controls are in place, the chances of improved efficiency and success via microtasking are high.

Case Example: Pivot Power. Ever see a product invention that sells so well and is seemingly so simple in concept that you think “why didn’t I think of that?” Pivot Power is exactly that type of invention. We’ve all had this problem: you buy a power strip, but obnoxiously bulky battery chargers and AC adapters block the ability for other electronics to be plugged in and limit the maximum capacity of your power strip. Pivot Power comes up with a creative yet obvious solution: make the power strip flexible, kind of like those cheap plastic toy snakes we all played with when we were kids. The inventor of the idea has been paid out close to HALF A MILLION DOLLARS and nearly 400,000 units have been sold since its launch.

Okay, so what does Pivot Power have to do with microtasking? It was the result of Quirky, a company specializing in microtasking. Quirky uses microtasking to fuel product development, and with the help of the crowd, has successfully launched products in major retail channels such as Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and OfficeMax. Quirky knows there are a mass of creative people out there who conjure up crazy good ideas but don’t possess the finances, legal savvy, technical capabilities, and/or simple cojones to bring them to life. So what the company does is solicit new product ideas from the crowd and have voters lend their opinions to validate the concept. Those ideas with serious potential are then designed, manufactured, and marketed by Quirky. Inventors get awarded 30% of revenue.

Pivot Power, a product of microtasker Quirky

Crowdsourcing Is Redefining Innovation As We Know It

These crowdsourcing websites are addictive; you can spend hours and hours marveling at these new inventions and outputs that arguably would never have existed without the help of crowdsourcing. We here at GeniusRocket are proud to be part of the revolution (we were recently even featured in an MBA textbook “Business in a Changing World”, which pretty much implies we’re the real deal, right??) and hope to wow you readers as we continue to produce great videos with the power of our curated crowd.

In what other ways do you see tech companies benefiting from the use of crowdsourcing? Share your comments with us below!

With over 72 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, you can bet that the attention span of viewers is short when it comes to online video. As a duty to your brand, your job is to not only create a quality video that resonates with your target audience, but to also maximize the ROI of it. And a huge part of maximizing ROI is to extend the online video life cycle.

Some Expert Stats to Note

GeniusRocket at IdeaMensch

What do Seth Godin, Tony Hsieh, and GeniusRocket’s Peter LaMotte have in common? They’re all thought leaders recognized by IdeaMensch for having the chutzpah to bring brilliant ideas to life. Who is IdeaMensch? Better question, is: What is IdeaMensch?

IdeaMensch #IM48 is one big road trip bringing together four guys in search of big ideas. Four guys are spending four months, traveling across America and putting on events to encourage people to bring to life their own ideas. They’ve identified entrepreneurs who are willing to admit their failures and to share what they’ve learned from it, and can inspire by showing how they overcame the #1 fear that prevents ideators from becoming true entrepreneurs: taking that leap of faith and making the moves to make an idea an actual business.

Here is information about the event pulled from the site. GeniusRocket friends can register for tickets online and get a sweet discount by entering “geniusrocket” at checkout. Hope to see you there!

September 25th at Loyola’s Columbia Graduate Campus

Ideas by themselves are of little value. Whether your idea is an app, a nonprofit, a book, a website or an invention – what matters is how you bring it to life. And really it doesn’t matter whether the idea you’re bringing to life is a business, a project or a cause – the one thing that connects all people with ideas are our passions, struggles and ways we go about bringing our ideas to life.

Our mission is to help people bring their ideas to life. That’s what we try to do through our daily interviews with folks ranging from Seth Godin to Tony Hsieh to Craig Newmark, and that’s what we’re trying to do with our 48-state road trip across America.

And that’s what we’re going to do with our event in Baltimore. At every event, we we bring in a wide range of awesome speakers who then spend 10 minutes talking about an idea they brought (or are bringing to life), how they did and what you can learn from it. And then you’ll have 10 minutes to ask them questions and continue the conversation. We try to create an intimate setting that allows for the audience to really engage with our speakers.

We promise you’re going to walk away with at least five super valuable nuggets of information to put to use for your own idea. This isn’t a networking event, but you’re sure to meet some fascinating people.

The event will run from 6pm until about 9pm and be held at:

Loyola’s Columbia Graduate Campus – The Program Room
8890 McGaw Road
Columbia, MD 21045

Speakers:

Whether you choose us or another agency, these pointers should help you execute your campaign with confidence. Ultimately, we want you to maximize the power of the crowd and nail your business objectives with an outstanding video marketing campaign.

Performance Management and Iteration

For the sake of advancing video marketing methodology, and for the more important business objective of understanding if the investment in your video campaign was worth it, we can’t stress enough how crucial it is for you to deliberate what metrics to track. The analysis you do will help you not only understand how your campaign performed, it’ll also drive key insights into helping you improve your next campaign cycle.

Documenting Performance Metrics

Paid, Owned, and Earned Media

Whether you choose us or another agency, these pointers should help you execute your campaign with confidence. Ultimately, we want you to maximize the power of the crowd and nail your business objectives with an outstanding video marketing campaign.

Distribution: Where to Seed You Video

We feature the topic of distribution as the 6th part of this blog series since it’s in sequential order of the video marketing process. However, in terms of planning it’s mandatory you decide before the project begins where and how you want your video distributed.  Distribution should be contingent on what your marketing and business goals are, since each channel affects customers in different ways. What part of the conversion funnel are you hoping to lift with the launch of your video? Where is your target audience consuming video?

Analysis shows:

• Repurposed TV ads show higher impact on awareness metrics than made-for-web videos do
• Made-for-web ads show higher purchase intent metrics than repurposed TV ads do
• Purchase intent is particularly high for made-for-web ad online viewers age 18-34
• Purchase intent and brand favorability is significantly higher for women

Here are the types of video mediums available and some pros and cons to each:

In our next blog post, we’ll help you plot out what performance metrics are important to measure in order to assess the campaign’s success. Stay tuned! (Or… just go to www.geniusrocket.com/whitepaper where you can access the entire guide at once)

How do you decide on distribution channel based on your business objectives? Share them with us in the comment section below! 

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Read previous posts:

Crowdsourcing a Video Marketing Campaign Stage 1: Defining Business Objectives

Crowdsourcing a Video Marketing Campaign Stage 2: Choosing Your Creative Partner

Crowdsourcing a Video Marketing Campaign Stage 3: Concept Generation

Crowdsourcing a Video Marketing Campaign Stage 4: Concept Validation and Risk Management

Crowdsourcing a Video Marketing Campaign Stage 5: Quality Control for Production

Measure Success Factors That Matter in the Crowdsourcing Domain